The Challenger's Return: Rebirth of the Rainbow Mage

[Evolution Bead]

Three-Digit #779

Consumable Auxiliary (2 uses)

Supports one racial evolution. Only usable in the [Neutral Zone].

Otto's eyebrows rose as he gazed at the bead.

Racial evolution was no mean feat.

As a fundamental enhancement of a challenger's race, it wasn't easy to find in the tower that primarily rewarded attributes for achievements.

Most races that were brought into the [Tower] world were low-ranking races.

Humans, in particular, despite having many advantages, such as powerful fertility and endless ingenuity, were among the lowest-tier race in the tower.

It wasn't because they started out particularly weak, either.

Compared to some other species, especially races that were naturally small in size like a evolved insect species, humans were considered rather strong.

It was actualy because of their low innate potential.

Without the [Tower] granting them the ability to see and use their attributes, humans would naturally not ever be able to surpass '2' in almost all of their physical attributes.

Even if they trained their entire lives.

Of course, this also had something to do with the lack of energy or mana on the planet they called home.

But even adding energy or mana into the equation, it was unlikely that even the strongest human would ever surpass '10' in strength, speed, stamina, or the durability of their body and the sharpness of their mind.

On the other hand, the [Tower] allowed humans to break free of their natural constraints, and semi-artificially grow their power.

Unfortunately, there was still a limit.

A price needed to be paid for miracles to happen.

Otto found out the hard way in his past life that the potential of his body, and perhaps of his particular species of humans was really too low.

In both mind and body.

This wasn't directly evident in the [Tower], where one of the biggest merits of becoming a challenger was legitimately endless potential for growth.

However, the costs were far greater if one's potential was low.

Essentially, the smaller the potential of one's body, the larger the cost to grow one's attributes.

As a challenger's attributes began to evolve and they continued to add attribute points to each attribute, the attribute 'cost per point ratio' increased exponentially.

For most races in the tower, this exponential increase was even considered 'standard.'

Though it was certainly slightly different depending on the species.

Since their potential for growth was so naturally limited.

A racial evolution would change all that.

Otto had never been through a racial evolution.

Nor had he talked in depth with anyone who had.

He didn't know exactly what benefits and drawbacks, if any, it brought.

He was also unaware of the magnitude of the changes.

However, he was certain.

That after a racial evolution, increasing his attributes would not be quite so strenuous in the future.

Aside from this, Otto was, surprisingly, completely oblivious to the merits of using this bead.

But that didn't mean he thought it was unimportant.

To get to this point, it was undeniable that Otto had faced some hardship.

He had to figure out how to see the poison, determine where it came from, find a way to tunnel all the way down here while facing the increasingly debilitating effects of said poison, enter the cave, defeat an insanely strong combatant, and grab the bead.

Looking back, this series of events, for anyone else, could essentially be called impossible.

And the rewards of these floors always matched their difficulty.

Otto's face broke into a grin.

But then, his features shifted to reveal a small frown.

Truthfully, he was a little confused.

He had entered this cave preparing to find the source of the poison, grab it, and leave.

Now, he had defeated such a strong purple clad combatant and found this valuable bead, but he had not actually gotten what he came for.

So where was the source of the poison?

Otto's eyes inadvertently turned to the pool of liquid poison surrounding the bead.

As his body had fully recovered, his courage also grew.

Otto dipped his finger into the pool of poison and shook off the excess.

The liquid was very viscous, thicker than blood, but not particularly sticky.

There was no pain or numbing sensation in his finger, either.

Otto dabbed a tiny drop onto his tongue.

His eyes widened.

What…was this? Was this really poison?

The taste was poles apart from the poison he had tasted earlier.

Instead of a bitter, acrid note followed by a sickly sweet aftertaste, the 'poison' in this pool tasted like nothing at all, a sort of extremely fresh water.

Otto's brows furrowed in confusion.

Where was all the poison coming from, if not this cave?

Suddenly, a tiny warm current snaked through his stomach.

It passed through his abdominal region and flowed freely around his entire body.

Everywhere it passed, his body would grow just a tiny bit stronger.

Not nearly enough to feel any effects, but enough for Otto to discover its presence.

This liquid wasn't poison, then, but….?

His mind ventured an astonishing guess.

Otto examined the liquid in the pool closely.

He utilized his inspect followed by an [Analyze] spell.

[Strengthening Liquid]

Energy byproduct of the Evolution Bead.

Permanently strengthens a user's body.

So this pool had nothing to do with the poison, either, then?

Otto's eyes glowed.

He casually brought out a glut of empty containers and bottles from his spatial storage ring.

He now had quite a few due to his consumption of potions on the way here, and of course, in case he had time to make more for the duration of this floor.

But gathering this pool of liquid was much better.

This stuff represented wealth! Wealth, and power!

Since it had a [Tower] screen, it could be brought out of this floor and properly fed to the kids to make them grow up faster.

Obviously, he himself would be utilizing the bead's energy when the time came to finish this floor.

Otto didn't hurry to collect the liquid.

It didn't seem like there was any danger in the cave, but he'd prefer not to accidentally get contaminated by stray poison should it suddenly emerge from its 'hiding spot.'

He scrutinized his surroundings closely.

So far, the cave was completely smooth and left no clues at all.

Even with his perception, he couldn't detect anything.

Otto walked over to where he'd emerged from the tunnel, only to discover that there was still a large amount of poison inside it, flowing upward without ceasing on a direct route to the surface.

He looked closer, trying to figure out where this thick mist originated.

His scrutiny brought him to a small previously overlooked area on top of the cave.

Nothing was visible to the naked eye, but Otto could tell there was a massive reserve of poison coming from this area.

He used [Sense Life] to try and figure out if the poison emitter was actually a living thing.

And his [Sense Life] actually came back with a result!

A small bright spot appeared in Otto's vision. It looked like it hung on top of the cave.

Whatever was emitting the poison was alive.

Otto was exceedingly curious as to what this thing actually was.

He cast a [Wind Jump] on himself and jogged up to take a closer look.

At close distance, Otto's powerful vision could finally make out its features.

It was just that it camouflaged itself extremely well with the roof of the cave, presenting no flaw in the ceiling when viewed from afar.

Moreover, it didn't have to change its camouflage at all.

From what Otto could see, it didn't even need to move.

Two small tubes extruding from its back shot out liquid into the cave ceiling.

Once ejected from the tubes, the liquid instantly turned into a thick gas, and spread upwards, propelled by some unseen force.

Otto cast a quick analyze on this creature.

[Poison Producing Golem]

An inert poison producing machine injected with a soul.

Pseudo-living creature.

Follows basic orders.

Currently subordinate to ???

Third evolution. Currently evolving.

A spark of understanding dawned on Otto after he analyzed it.

He was a smart guy.

With all the clues right here directly in front of him, how could he not piece them together?

Though he'd still have to figure out the nuts and bolts of the matter.

It seemed the evolution bead was here primarily to send its energy into this creature.

Otto felt that with the nature of the Throskarts, they would definitely be using this poison to develop a weapon of war.

Perhaps for use against the humans.

Otto sucked in a breath.

He didn't know a thing about the humans of this world in comparison to the Throskarts.

Fortunately, given the level of animosity from the entire race, the humans were not likely to be a race so easily trifled with.

He calmed down slightly.

It was just, imagining such an ingenious, insidious, and wide-ranging poison falling on an unsuspecting planet…

Even his callous heart froze slightly upon imagining the number of casualties this would cause.

Otto quickly cleared his head of the thoughts.

For now….he wanted to see if it was possible to bring this thing with him.

If he could have a poison producing machine like this…

The only potential snag was that, for now, Otto didn't know how to take control of it.

However, given that it was magic technology, perhaps there was a method he could use…

Otto injected mana into the small golem to inspect its inner workings.

This would give him a better idea of how to snatch or subvert the other party's method of control.

Perhaps it would also allow Otto to figure out just how the thing received orders. Well, it was also possible that the woman he'd killed was the one controlling it nearby, but if that was the case, wouldn't it have stopped emitting its poison mist when she died?

There was definitely another unknown method.

Otto's mana suffused the golem, though Otto made sure not to tamper with anything…for now.

He easily found a small magical transmitter connected to what looked to be a set of minuscule buttons.

To Otto, who came from modern Earth, it resembled a small, primitive computer.

The transmitter was connected by a thin but powerful string of mana to a location very far away from the cave.

It was probably not even on this island planet at all.

Otto smirked a little, and decided not to cut the string.

He knew the higher ups would find out about his deeds eventually, especially after killing this supposedly 'noble' purple clad woman, but cutting the string of mana directly would only alert them in advance.

Instead, Otto channeled [Wind Jump] continuously, and sat down leisurely on a platform in the air.

Then, he began to do two things.

First, he observed the interactions between the transmitter and the golem's control panel to get a feel for the golem's typical patterns.

Otto also occasionally pressed different buttons to figure out how exactly they functioned.

He was careful not to press buttons that hadn't already been used by the transmitter, in case he did something wrong and caused the golem to go crazy and shoot copious amounts of poison directly into the cave.

Second, he slowly melded and combined his own mana into the mana of the transmitter.

This was to camouflage the feedback the higher-ups were receiving from the golem.

When he took over, it would take them a lot longer to figure it out.

A few hours passed in silence as Otto grew accustomed to the various controls.

Most of them pinpointed a specific direction to target: the poison the golem produced was surprisingly not completely inert, Otto discovered.

Rather, there were almost microscopic mana particles mixed into it that would direct it with precision to the target location, and even send feedback to the golem that would, in turn, adjust its output as needed.

Otto didn't know if this was the result of the golem's evolution, or if the Throskarts had created such a function in the poison to begin with.

Either way, it was ingenious, and allowed the Throskarts to have precise control of exactly which areas were covered by poison.

Hence the 'red zones' in this game show.

Otto glanced at the bead in his hand.

He didn't know how long it had taken for this golem to evolve so many times, but even understanding only this aspect of the golem's evolution filled Otto with excitement for his own evolution in the future.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, pushing his innate trait [Multitask] to its maximum capability.

Just because [Multitask] was made for focusing on more than one thing didn't mean it wasn't useful for focusing in general.

Since it split Otto's brain into parts, essentially, Otto could also use it to complete normal tasks quicker, by running separate calculations in each part of his mind.

Moreover, his basic brain function had also been enhanced.

A few hours passed as he familiarized himself with the semi-sentient machine.

Finally, he memorized and internalized the golem's various controls. By this point, Otto's mana had also completely merged with the mana at the end of the transmitter's string.

As such, he sent feedback that the golem was still operating normally, even as he placed it in one of the sad little pockets on his robes, then instructed it to withdraw all the poison currently underground.

So he could fly up through the tunnel unscathed.

Alas, he couldn't place it in his spatial storage ring quite yet; doing so would cut off the mana string entirely.

He at least wanted to be above ground before he alerted the Throskarts to his presence.

*********************************************************************

A heavily bloodied woman limped through a narrow path through the trees.

She took the meager time she had to rest to drink a few sips of potion out of a giant container.

Her limp slowly healed, even as she cursed herself for her lack of prudence, drinking this potion so lavishly early on.

She was now starting to run out.

It was only Day 4 of the survival game.

It was like the enemies would never stop coming.

After a while, her sleep deprived mind even started to find it kind of funny.

Why did these odd looking people always run over to die by her hand?

But if their strategy was to wear her down, it was working spectacularly.

She had grabbed sleep in fits and starts ever since she entered this forest.

Unlike Otto, her start had been full of blood, sweat, and numerous tears.

Tears of rage when she was ambushed for the 74th time on her way back to her little hole in a tree to try and sleep.

Followed by a red-eyed massacre.

Tears of frustration when she could only spend the points she had worked so hard to earn on expensive stealth tools that briefly blocked the cameras and other Throskarts from finding her exact location so she could take a short nap in her tree.

Meaning she could only kill some more.

Tears of joy whenever she had a spare hour to sit down and wash herself by a nearby stream.

Allowing her to finally feel like a person once more.

Tears of shame as she was ogled for the thousandth time.

But Julia was a fast learner.

Whereas after her training, she could be called at least a reasonably proficient combatant, she had now grown increasingly adept in using dirty tricks.

Throwing sand in an enemy's eye before they struck.

Using her shield to stun a man before her hammer smashed hard into their balls.

In a few cases, they even cracked, causing a nasty wet stain to appear around the crotch.

In all cases, the man was completely immobilized, allowing her to smash their heads off with ease.

Unfortunately, she also became increasingly good at escaping.

In this forest, she was by no means the only predator.

Throskarts stronger and smarter than her were littered around the forest.

Worse, most of them travelled in packs.

Julia could only hide when she encountered them. She was careful not to antagonize them over much, or else that, combined with the enmity the two races shared, would lead to them going on a manhunt (or a woman-hunt) for her, using everything at their disposal to ensure she died.

Four days later, though she was still incredibly exhausted, her body had ultimately adapted a little to the environment.

Julia was also lucky in that she only had to travel twice through the night to reach the safe zones, and avoid the invisible poison surrounding her.

Her legs tensed once again as she reached a familiar spot in the forest.

There was usually an ambush here.

Sure enough, as soon as she took a step, a bolt of mana almost blasted her leg apart.

Three Throskarts came out.

Julia nodded.

It seemed they were prepared this time.

An archer, a mage, and a 'warrior.' If this were a game, perhaps Julia would be a BOSS monster with a deep red name reflecting her numerous murders.

Julia examined their tokens.

Red, Red, Light Orange.

Her lips quirked upward in a barely noticeable arc.

One of the enemies spoke in a hushed tone to his companion,

"Whoa, she's so hot. If we can capture her, maybe we can..."

"Shut up, Asvar. You know that's not our mission."

The mage also whispered in a sinister voice,

"I wouldn't be opposed to *whisper whisper* after she's gone a little cold...."

Unlike before, where Julia would have felt a twinge of revulsion at the man's words, she no longer batted an eye.

They always screamed and let out such pitiful cries whenever she broke their nuts with her hammer, anyway.

Julia checked her rank.

[Current Rank: 73,835]

Good.

She cracked her knuckles.

It was just about time to dish out another steaming pile of ass-whooping.